Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/111

xciii ARAGON. xciii The power of the monarch was as nothing be- section fore this formidable array. The Union appointed ,, I. r Their abro- a council to control all his movements, and, in tact, gation. during the whole period of its existence, the reigns of four successive monarchs, it may be said to have dictated law to the land. At length Peter the Fourth, a despot in heart, and naturally enough impatient of this eclipse of regal prerogative, brought the matter to an issue, by defeating the army of the Union, at the memorable battle of Epila, in 1348, " the last," says Zurita, " in which it was permitted to the subject to take up arms against the sovereign for the cause of liberty." Then, convoking an assembly of the states at Sara- gossa, he produced before them the instrument con- taining the two Privileges, and cut it in pieces with his dagger. In doing this, having wounded him- self in the hand, he suffered the blood to trickle upon the parchment, exclaiming, that "a law, which had been the occasion of so much blood, should be blotted out by the blood of a king. " ^^ All copies of it, whether in the public archives, or in the pos- session of private individuals, were ordered, under a heavy penalty, to be destroyed. The statute pass- ed to that effect carefully omits the date of the de- tested instrument, that all evidence of its existence might perish with it.^^ 25 Zurita, Anales, torn. ii. fol. ber of Deputation at Saragossa in 126-130. — Blancas, Commenta- Philip II.'s time. See Antonio rii, pp. 195 - 197. — Hence he was Perez, Relaciones, fol. 95. styled " Peter of the Dagger" ; 26 gee the statute, De Prohibit4 and a statue of him, bearing in one Unione, &c. Fueros y Observan hand this weapon, and in the other cias, torn. i. fol. 178. — A copy of the Privilege, stood in the Cham- the original Privileges was detected